


california dreamin'

by a_nybodys



Series: this is dedicated to the one i love [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, No Incest, Post-Apocalypse, again this is NOT incest you freaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23475277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nybodys/pseuds/a_nybodys
Summary: Klaus needs a distraction, and knitting just isn't cutting it.
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves
Series: this is dedicated to the one i love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692919
Comments: 16
Kudos: 99





	california dreamin'

Through the stitch,

‘Klaus!’

loop,

‘I can’t see! Oh god, I can-’

pull the yarn,

‘You little shit stop ignoring m-’

slip the stitch off. Easy.

‘KLAUS!’

“Fuck off.” Klaus was this close to gauging his eardrums out with the knitting needles he was struggling with. At least it would shut them up, he reasoned to himself, eyeing the (cheap, plastic, probably would be easier with metal ones) knitting needle currently holding a row of messy knits, before flinching back from the sight of a bloody, mangled hand trying, and failing, to grab them from his grip. Maybe he should gauge his eyes out first, and then his eardrums. He pushed down the panic rising in his chest, willing his throat from closing as they inched closer. There were at least five of them in his room, and he was nearly certain that they had more of a grudge against his littlest oldest brother than him, if their injuries were anything to go by. He’d seen so many like them a few days, a week?, back, that day in the motel, during the week of the Apoca-wasn’t. The Armage-don’t. The-

‘Klaus please, my mother doesn’t know I’m dead-’

Klaus heaved a sigh through gritted teeth and sat up, ignoring the cold shiver that ran through his spine when he passed through the three ghosts sitting on his bed, crowding him in. He trudged upward, feeling as if he was wading through cold, dirty pond water. He needed music. God he needed music. And Dave. Sometimes in the afterglow, when they had earned a little R&R and had shacked up in a shitty little hotel for the majority of the five days they were allowed, Dave would stroke Klaus’ curls, damp with sweat, and sing under his breath, and Klaus heard the songs like echoes through a cave or mauso-, cave just a cave, with his ear pressed against Dave’s chest. He would lay, ear cramping, for near hours, and Dave didn’t stop until his breathing calmed down or his shaking stopped. It was mostly The Mamas & The Papas, Dave was crazy about them, but Klaus liked them well enough, and hearing Dave’s voice mumble through “Dedicated to the One I Love” and “Monday, Monday” slowly but surely brought him out of whatever funk he was nearly always in after sex. He blames the bad weed, cut with whatever shit they could get in the middle of the fucking jungle, but he knew it probably had something to do with how the only thing he could remember about his first time was that he was thirteen and when he came-to he was halfway inside a dumpster, but whatever. Besides, Dave was a horrible singer, and hearing him butcher “You Baby” and warble the lyrics into his neck was enough of a distraction to get him in the mood for round two, or round five, or round he-lost-track-at-eight.

‘Klaus, my hands-’

He needed music.

He shuffled, aches nearly causing his muscles to seize, out his door, dropping the mangled scarf-potholder-thing on the ground as he went. Luckily his goal was next door, he didn’t want to see any of the others like this. He sent Ben off an hour ago, telling him to go play with the neighbors dead cat or something, before his brain derailed that thought with musings on whether he could see dead animals or not, and when that thread was done, Ben was gone. He did it on purpose, not wanting his brother seeing his shaking hands as he tried to cast on some stitches, not wanting the gleam of sweat on his forehead or the spasms to be noticed by anyone. He was weak, but not that weak. 

Luther’s door was cracked, ever-so-slightly, and Klaus opened it slowly, praying to the little girl on the bike that the man the myth the legend himself wasn’t in. Seeing no one, Klaus breathed a shuddering sigh of relief and charged through the door and straight to the stout little bookshelf-turned-record holder. He crouched and squinted at the labels, eyes blurring slightly at the edges. Did he need glasses? Fuck. Focus, music.

It was mostly filled with ‘80’s bops, the only thing he and Luther had in common, but towards the bottom he spotted the ‘69 “Abbey Road” album. He laid down on his stomach, needing to get as close to the labels as possible to read anything when a throat cleared in the doorway.

“What are you doing to my floor, Klaus?”

“What does it look like, Luther.” Klaus didn’t even need to look up from where his cheek pressed against the worn floorboards to see the disapproving, disgruntled, and a little disgusted face he knew his brother had. It was a permanent fixture whenever the man looked at Klaus since they were twelve and Klaus had taken a swan dive off the stairs wearing Grace’s heels. The pain had been unbearable, but god the morphine- it was then, surrounded by true silence in the medical room for the first time in his entire life that he decided that sobriety was overrated. He blinked. Right, music to drown out screaming, music to stop him from running to the nearest alley and shooting up.

It wasn’t there. Klaus blew a raspberry and peeled himself off the ground, stumbling to his feet and coming face-to-face with the man of the hour. 

“I was hoping you might have a certain record, but you don't so I’m gonna go draw a bath and try and drown myself, seeya on the flip side-” and before he could waltz out of the room (which was starting to fill with mangled bodies wasn’t that just swell-) a tree-trunk of an arm shot out to block him. Klaus blew air through his lips (did that have a name? Motorboating? No wait that was something entirely different) and lazily drew his eyes up to Luther’s face. He looked… worried? Well, that was new. Klaus just raised his eyebrows, expectant. Maybe he wanted a family meeting to address suicidal ideation or some shit.

“What record were you looking for?”

Huh. 

“‘If You Can Believe Your Ears and Eyes’ by The Mamas & The Papas.”

Luther furrowed his eyebrows, as if trying to take mental stock of his collection, and then, after a few seconds of staring into the space just above Klaus’ left shoulder, shook his head slightly.

“Yeah, I don’t have that one. But-” And now Luther looked nervous, this just kept getting better, and he said, in a rush and nearly under his breath, “I do know a good record store in walking distance if you want to come with me.”

For such a large man, Luther sure looked like he wanted to melt into the floorboards Klaus had just been practically dry humping. It was nearly adorable, and Klaus had been thrown back to when they were six and Luther had given Grace a paper heart he had cut out in their half-hour of free time. She had stuck it on the fridge and it stayed there until the next day, when Reggie saw it and decided it was a teaching moment. He had made Luther rip it up, and had taken him into the study. When he had come back out, he was different, a little harder and a little meaner, and Klaus had never seen him hug Grace since. 

Klaus blinked. Right, Luther. Waiting for an answer. One that Klaus really wasn’t sure about. He supposed Luther was feeling guilty about the whole rave thing, and they had all decided, a few minutes after teleporting back in the house after the whole Ragna-not, that they would be a family, goddammit, and they would treat each other with respect, and they would actually try. Mostly it was Five, the soft little bastard, who made everyone swear it. But it had been a week, two maybe?, since then and Luther hadn’t so much as breathed in his general direction. It wasn’t like Klaus minded, they had never been close before the Catacl-isn’t (that one needed work for sure-) and sure it would be nice to have at least a semi-functional relationship with all his siblings, not just the one that couldn’t be seen by anyone else, but he was a realist at heart, and he knew that it was a long shot for Luther of all people to want to spend time with him. 

Luther cleared his throat, and put his arm down, flushing slightly and turning his head away. 

“It’s fine if you don’t want to, I can give you the addre-”  
“No!” the exclamation jolted Luther, and Klaus realized he was just as surprised as Luther. “No, I, uh, would love to go.”

Luther turned, eyes wide, and he smiled.

“But you’re paying, I’m not exactly liquid right now.” It was for his own good, he didn’t trust himself with any amount of money at the moment, and he knew none of the others did either. Luther rolled his eyes, but he didn’t decline, and Klaus counted it as a victory.

“Just think of it as my one week sober present.”

“Klaus, we’ve been back for a solid month.”

“Jesus Christ, I need a watch or something.”

A few hours later, Klaus laid in his bed, Luther’s record player pushed a little haphazardly into Klaus’ room. Luther had done it himself, not wanting Klaus to be without the distraction when he went to bed at a boring eight o’clock at night. It was turned down, low enough to hear the gentle scratch of the needle against the vinyl, and Klaus drifted off to the sound of Mama Cass crooning away, and he slept better than he had in weeks.

And, if he could just barely feel the phantom sensations of fingers curling through his hair, scratching his scalp gently, and the pounding rhythm of a heartbeat under his cheek, well, that was nobody’s business but his.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Klaus is listening to in specific at the end is "You Baby" by The Mamas & The Papas, which is such a Klave song it makes me emo.  
> “They say candy is sweet, but it just can't compete with you, baby.  
> You've got everything I need and nobody can please like you, you baby.  
> And who believes that my wildest dreams and my craziest schemes will come true”
> 
> Thanks for reading, it's super different to what I've posted before, hope y'all liked it!


End file.
